promontory
by vis-et-decus
Summary: Quinn x Rachel. let it fall by the way, but don't leave me where I lay. tell me everything I'm not, but don't ever tell me to stop. Quinn sells her body for a chance at escape, Rachel sells her soul for a chance at Quinn.
1. prompt, warning, notes

**filled** for a request over at rq_meme on LJ. "After giving Beth up for adoption, Quinn is broken. Her parents aren't separating, and they aren't taking her back. She's living with Mercedes, and in order to prepare for college and the fees, she starts prostituting around Lima. Men, women, anyone who will pay for it. Rachel finds out somehow, and tries to help Quinn. After nothing she does helps, Rachel starts blowing through her own savings, purchasing Quinn for nights. I'd like it to be dark, but to have a happy Faberry ending. Bonus points if Karofsky tries to publicly and rudely buy sex from Quinn, and Rachel finally loses her cool and lays into him. More bonus points if when Rachel buys Quinn for the night, Quinn tries to force herself on the brunette, saying she paid for her, thus she paid for sex. Rachel, though shamefully tempted (and secretly in love with Quinn) makes her stop, telling her she just wants to talk."

**warning:** vague depictions of physical abuse and a fairly realistic look at prostitution. Pretty Woman this isn't.

in chapter x ("every time that you're not next to me"), those vague depictions get pretty graphic. steel your stomachs.

in the epilogue: chapter xii ("it just won't stop, it just won't go away"), there's sexytimes. if you find that icky, then I'd suggest skipping over it.

**random notes: **why am I writing for Glee again? oh, right, because Dianna Agron is a stone fox and I repay her by turning Quinn into a prostitute. chapter titles are from "Santa Monica" by Theory of a Deadman. enough Brittana to wet your lips with, but 100% Faberry and 110% wrong. one-way trip to special hell right this way.

**citations:**

opening description  
* the lyrics on the title page are from 'Don't Tell Me' by Madonna.

iv. my bones will break and my heart will give -  
* the song Rachel listens to is "All I Ask Of You - Reprise" from Phantom of the Opera.

viii. even if we thought it would last -  
* the monologue Quinn listens to is from Shakespeare's 'As You Like It.' Act II, scene vii, lines 139 - 142.  
* Quinn's quick reference to Faust is referencing, of course, Goethe's Faust - in this case, Rachel making a "deal with the devil" (Mephistopheles = Santana)  
* the trio of tragic heroes Quinn references are: Romeo (Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet), Tristram (the Celtic legend of Tristram and Iseult, or Tristan and Isolde) and Lancelot (Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte d/Arthur')  
* the poem Quinn helps Brittany with is 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes  
**  
**x. every time that you're not next to me -  
* welp, I wrote this after watching both the trailer and the infamous rape scene from the movie Monster (2003; Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci), but in truth I only saw about half of that scene since I couldn't handle it anymore, and you should not watch it if you want to sleep. ever.

xi. I remember the day you told me it's over  
* Rachel's 'bitches' insult isn't mine, I could never come up with anything that awesome. credit goes to one Dave Chappelle.  
* 'not always there when you call but I'm always on time' is from the song called, funnily enough, 'Always On Time' by Ja Rule and Ashanti. (don't judge me.)  
* the line calling hope 'the thing with feathers' comes from the poem 'Hope' by Emily Dickinson.

xii. it just won't stop, it just won't go away  
* tell me why I wrote this while listening to 'Tonight' by Enrique Iglesias on repeat (yes, the explicit version). oh, that's right, because I'm a sick, sick dog and my inspiration comes from the wildest places. come on, you can't hear Rachel singing it?

_you know my motivation given my reputation, please excuse me I don't mean to be rude_

... no? just me? yeah, thought so._  
_


	2. she fills my bed with gasoline

tell the bed not to lay like the open mouth of a grave  
Don't Tell Me / Madonna

I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared... or even noticed.  
Gloria Stuart / Titanic

* * *

**i. she fills my bed with gasoline  
**

Quinn Fabray only has two things she can call her own, and one of them is a burns-so-hot-it's-radioactive desire to get out of Lima, Ohio.

The other thing isn't a family. It took nine months to conceive, grow and birth an infant and nine minutes to hand her off; barely enough time to realize she'd never know the color of her daughter's eyes because all babies have blue eyes when they're born. Her mother and father are still together, still adamant that their daughter is in permanent possession of a one-way ticket to hell, and still refuse to let her within fifty feet of the only home she'd ever known. Puck had sweet words - and that's all they were, words; sentences lost to the air and lost to meaning the moment they tumble from his lips. With Beth gone he considers himself absolved of all responsibility, and then Quinn doesn't even have his empty promises, his white noise.

She lives with Mercedes, sure. But it's not her family, not her home. Not her pillow she rests her head on at night, not her food that makes up the dinner she forces down with multiple glasses of water and chases with guilt. They're kind, but cautious. Gently distant. Apologetically aloof. And she can't blame them.

The other thing isn't a chance at a full ride. There used to be the potential for an athletic scholarship, but any chance of that vanished the moment she left the Cheerios - and for good, this time. Maybe she'll get some sort of academic scholarship, sure, but her grades suffered when she was pregnant and even though she could take Advanced Placement courses and study until her eyes melted out of their sockets and claw her way back to the top of the academic pile, what's the chance that even the valedictorian of their class will get a full scholarship to a decent school? They have problems funding their own extracurriculars, let alone their students. It's William McKinley High School, not Phillips Exeter Academy.

The other thing isn't money. Okay, so maybe there's a possibility she can get out of Lima but even with a half or partial scholarship, she still has to make up the rest. There's room and board and books and countless other debts to feed and mouths to pay.

The first thing is a burns-so-hot-it's-radioactive desire to get out of Lima, Ohio; if money will make that happen, then she'll do anything to make the money happen.

Correction: she'll do _anyone_ to make the money happen.

* * *

Quinn Fabray only has two things she can call her own, and one of them is a burns-so-hot-it's-radioactive desire to get out of Lima, Ohio.

That is why every day, after school, she gets into her car. She exits the parking lot of William McKinley High School and goes straight into the part of town that would make 'seedy' a synonym for 'Eden.' She parks at a little convenience store that straddles the imaginary line that divides the 'better' part of the city from the 'worse;' that in and of itself is subjective since there is no one definite area that splits the city, just a gradual increase in the number of liquor outlets and shuttered stores with graffiti on the boarded-up windows and government-run housing.

Quinn would know; she's memorized every single route to get to that location. She never travels the same way more than two days in a row.

She changes in her vehicle. She walks four blocks to where she's come to learn is a decent area to loiter - it's far enough away from the park where the drug dealers gather when the streetlights come on, but close enough to housing that there are enough people to make her wait worthwhile. Plus, there's a rent-by-the-hour motel another block away.

And there, she sells her body for the chance that she might be able to leave Lima, Ohio, and not even give it so much as the finger when she does so.

* * *

Mostly men, less frequently women. Some steal up to her with furtive steps and eyes that remind her of insects with the way that they flit around, rest on a shadow or peek around the side of a building, and then are moving again before they even come into focus. Some walk up to her without shame and assess her like a spring lamb on the butcher's block - and in a manner of speaking, it's not false.

Most are indifferent. A few are rough. Fewer still are those that are kind, and those are the ones she can't stand.

It's easier to go home _(no, Fabray, you don't have a home, or a family, or anyone that remotely gives half a shit)_ and force a smile when Mercedes asks her how her job is going, completely unaware that she's not working some crap part-time job because six-fifty an hour isn't going to get her the twenty thou a year it costs to go to a state school, never mind an out-of-state or private college. It's easier to rest her forehead against the cool tile of the shower and pry her thighs apart with her hands because she's so raw they won't come open of their own volition. It's easier for her to suck back the strangled sob when she does it, taking care not to bite her tongue or her lips because God _(God's abandoned you, Fabray... no, even worse than abandoning you, He's just utterly forgotten about you)_ knows that the last thing she needs is a wound to make her less appealing and provide another route for a STD. It's easier to stand there with the heat cranked to the hottest setting, letting her porcelain-pale skin becoming mottled beneath the water's abuse, and wash away the sweat and mucus and who knew what other kinds of fluids that were clinging to her body.

It's easier than dealing with those who are kind. The indifferent ones see her as nothing more than a willing orifice, a pleasant friction. The rough ones leave fingerprint and palm-sized bruises on her body, stretching and turning and filling and _intruding_, but at least she knows it comes with the... territory.

No, what Quinn Fabray can't handle are the hands that are too-soft on her hair and too-gentle on her skin, the sympathetic eyes, the whispers directed to the floor as shirts are shrugged on and zippers pulled back up. They all use different words, but it's always the same simple message:

"Why?"

_(because my name is Quinn Fabray and I only have two things I can call my own. one of them is a burns-so-hot-it's-radioactive desire to get out of Lima, Ohio. the second... isn't hope._

_I deserve this.)_


	3. you think I wouldn't notice

**ii. you think I wouldn't notice**

Quinn doesn't worry about being seen by anyone from school - perhaps acting like a 'thug' is the thing to do in popular youth culture but losing your life has never been trendy. Besides, there was plenty of free sex to go around at school - who would come sniffing around this type of area for crumbs while there were loaves aplenty in the hallways?

She does less than not worry about it. It doesn't even enter her mind - until the day it happens.

It wasn't her fault, of course. She was just doing her job - stepping out to present herself. She wasn't the type to squawk loud and intrusive invitations to anyone and everyone who passed, and neither would she purr seductive encouragement. She just emerged from her corner and stepped under the streetlight, eyes on the pavement but really straining at the corners to assess her potential customer, and unconsciously held her breath as she listened for the footsteps to increase pace and hurry on, occasionally hearing a hissed "Whore" between clenched teeth, or for the footsteps to slow, stop, and an appraising gaze sweep her from head to toe.

She last thing she expected was a small, strangled noise not unlike the one she makes in the shower as she forces herself spread open to wash off. Her head snapped up, the voice all too familiar and entirely unwelcome—

Of course. This just proved that God had forgotten her, because even in his cruelty, never, ever would He have put _Rachel fucking Berry_ in her path.

And what was Rachel doing here, anyway? Granted, she had a can of mace - no, two cans of mace, one in each hand - and a rape whistle dangling from the corner of her mouth, previously prepared for instant use and now forgotten, and probably a tazer in each of her jeans pockets and what the hell was Rachel Berry doing wearing jeans, and- no, wait, back to the original question— what the hell was Rachel _fucking_ Berry doing here to begin with? Okay, the owl sweater would ward off anyone even remotely interested in propositioning her but armed robbery was—

"Quinn?"

Quinn turns on her heel and walks away, headed straight for an alley she knows is close by and one that Rachel Berry wouldn't be too keen to follow her into. She can practically hear the brunette in her head, bemoaning the inadequate lighting and unsanitary conditions and high probability that they were going to be robbed, raped and murdered though perhaps not in that exact order, maybe the raping would—

"Quinn!"

She walks faster, disappearing into the darkness before Rachel can take a step to follow.

She can be an orphan in body, name and spirit. She can be held down by ungentle hands, and fucked eighteen ways to Sunday. She can remain perfectly silent through the worst of it, through the ones that sneer and scorn and spit, that slap her and call her cunt and bitch and slut even as they sodomize her.

But she cannot, _will not_, hear those words from Rachel Berry's lips as long as she draws breath, and she'll rip out her own intestines with a smile before she'll ever let a tear slip in front of the brunette.

Quinn Fabray only has two things she can call her own, and one of them is a burns-so-hot-it's-radioactive desire to get out of Lima, Ohio.

The second is her pride.

* * *

It takes her an entire weekend, a full school week, three times seeing Rachel Berry in the hallway and refusing to meet her eyes and five times cleaning herself off in the girls' bathroom after she's vomited up her lunch to finally figure out that something is off with the little brunette.

Rachel... looks too much like her.

The pinched lips, the too-pale complexion. The way she hugged her books tighter to her chest than normal. The crease in her brow that never seemed to disappear. The narrow, empty gaze - of that Quinn can only speculate, since she's too frightened of what will happen should she meet Rachel's eyes.

And she knows the confrontation is inevitable.

It's now the sixth time she's splashed water on her face, forcing down the aftertaste of saliva and bile, and the bathroom door opens. Quinn doesn't have to raise her eyes to know who it is - she's resigned herself to the fact that Rachel would inevitably catch her alone and exact her revenge. She expects it to be up on Ben Israel's blog within the hour and idly wonders how much weight the ceiling fan in the guest room at Mercedes' house can hold, because she'll be taking a different trip tonight. There was a hardware store nearby that would surely have what she—

"Quinn."

The blonde finally raises hazel eyes; though Rage, Condescension, Bitterness and Anxiety were all battling within her for supremacy, Terror comes and sits on them all.

Rachel is holding a cloth bag before her. It looks suspiciously like her emergency slushie kit, except that Rachel is quite clearly un-slushied. The brunette takes a breath and then the avalanche of the century comes spilling from between her lips: "I almost made the mistake of putting these objects into a plastic bag before realizing that plastic is, well, transparent, and that you would not approve of the questioning you'd naturally receive should you be seen with the items within. You'll find six boxes of condoms, ranging from large through extra-extra-large - or at least that's what I assume the 'L' and 'XXL' stand for - and, uh, one of the boxes said 'ribbed for her pleasure' and though I would not know from experience how well they actually perform up to their advertising, I would imagine that since you are performing these activities you would not be adverse to deriving pleasure from them yourself. In addition I have also included six dental dams, since I did not want to be remiss should you be open to servicing both genders. Also, I managed to convince Santana to forge me a prescription since her father is a doctor after all; I believe she gave me a look of grudging respect for the two boxes of hormonal contraceptives and one emergency contraceptive I requested - I believe the latter is known in the common vernacular as the Plan B or 'morning-after' pill, and—"

Rachel decides it's a good idea to stop talking because a) she's run out of breath, and b) Quinn is standing less than an inch away from her, and she's _trembling_.

"I don't want your _charity_, Manhands. I don't want your pity, I don't want your sympathy. I don't want you bringing this up again. What I want is for you to forget that ever happened. That moment? It. Never. Existed."

The brunette's brows furrow and she opens her mouth to argue, but Quinn leans in closer and the only thing that escapes Rachel is a dry, uneasy exhale.

"And, Rachel... if this ever gets out to anyone? I'll rip out your vocal chords with my teeth."

Rachel stands there for a full sixty seconds after Quinn has departed, the bag still clutched in her outstretched hand. She's stunned - absolutely stunned. And not because Quinn rejected her, or threatened her, or was just in general not a very nice person (not that it differed from her normal treatment of Rachel, of course).

She's stunned because that's the first time Rachel Berry has ever heard the thin, serrated note of utter terror in Quinn Fabray's voice.

* * *

A day goes by. Two. Five. Rachel seems far more tired. Her homework is half-finished when it's turned in - if it's turned in at all. Her sweaters suddenly seem too oversized; she's gaunt, a minnow drowning in waters of argyle. Quinn almost hyperventilates when she hears from a rather smug Mercedes that Rachel actually botched a series of high notes in Glee - Quinn's not there to witness it first-hand; her 'job' requires time that she can't sacrifice on the club. Rachel Berry, missing notes. Rachel Berry, refusing solos.

The first and only time Quinn skips work _(that's all it is, nothing but a way out, a means to an end)_ is when she hears Rachel has quit Glee club.

Quinn sits on the bed, staring at her phone, waiting for the landslide of calls and texts and voicemails that will come when Rachel Berry announces to the entire student population that Quinn Fabray is whoring herself out to every man and woman in Lima - _(step right up! ever had a wet dream about the former Cheerios captain? well, here's your chance to fulfill it! she has a head, three holes and a heartbeat; what more do you need? I bet she'd even give student discounts, yeah? she can't possibly be that expensive; she's been passed around like—)_

The rope she purchased from the hardware store lies coiled patiently at her feet; ready, willing, and able to do what she asks of it. After all, Quinn Fabray still has her pride - and she'll die with it, too.

But the calls, texts and voicemails never come.

How was Quinn to know the reason for Rachel's increasingly haggard appearance was because she stayed up every night until at least four in the morning, reading every single article and watching every single YouTube video about prostitution that she could lay her hands on? How would she know that the papers would pile up around Rachel's desk, highlights and color-coordinated notes articulating so many facts, percentages and figures that it would make a licensed analyst insane? How would she know that Rachel had to explain to her fathers that it was for a school project when they walked in on her sobbing hysterically after watching a 60 Minutes follow-up where half the women they'd interviewed in a previous episode were dead or missing? How would she know that Rachel's ribs grew more prominent every time she'd ignored the brunette confronting her in the restroom (eighteen times in the past five days); that Rachel's cheeks had not sunken in until the fifth day when she'd slapped that damnable bag out of her hand and sent birth control of every type scattering across the bathroom floor?

How was Quinn to know that she was literally killing Rachel with worry?


	4. someone's trying to show us a sign

**iii. someone's trying to show us a sign**

"Sixty dollars."

Quinn stares numbly at the three twenty-dollar bills held out in front of her, then up to the hard eyes of one Rachel Berry, who was the owner of the hand profferring the money.

"I'm—" Rachel swallows, searches for the appropriate words. "I'm a prospective client, Quinn. To walk away from any kind of profit would be poor judgment. I've... I've researched the prices negotiated for this type of... transaction, and this is more than double the average. I believe—"

"One hour."

"But—"

"One."

Quinn waits while Rachel pays for a room at the motel (she'll be triply-damned if she's forking out her own money to let Rachel Berry fuck her on a bed, comfortable as it may be) and leads her up the stairs; into the room. Rachel's eyes are practically vibrating in her skull, the way they shift from left to right to left to right, searching for the robbers and rapists and murderers she's sure are populating every shadow. She has the two cans of mace in a death grip and Quinn silently hopes Rachel doesn't get trigger-happy and unleash the chemicals on her, because working with a puffy face and bloodshot eyes isn't going to make things any easier.

_(when did I stop caring? ... did I ever care?)_

Once they're inside, Rachel locks the handle, the deadbolt, and props a chair against the door. Quinn idly wonders if this is the part where Rachel finally takes her revenge and murders her, leaving a dismembered body in the tub to be found by the room's next unlucky occupants.

Her suspicions don't subside when Rachel removes her backpack and opens it, eyeing Quinn the whole time. A triangular-shaped object appears in her hand and the brunette steps forward, holding it out in front of her. It's not a gun, or a knife, or a tazer, or a can of mace.

"That's a sandwich."

"Good, your visual acuity hasn't decreased any! I was worried about the different types of infections you could have contracted... though eyes usually aren't affected in your line of work, I was very thorough and researched—"

"And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with a sandwich? What kind of freak do you take me for?"

"I, uh... I expect you to eat it?"

Silence.

Rachel fidgets before blowing out a breath out of her nose; the noise is not unlike something a bull with asthma would make. "You work late. I highly doubt you take dinner breaks. Therefore it is not unreasonable for me to assume that you would be hungry. And by the sound that your stomach is making - peristalsis, if you'll recall from Biology - I would be correct."

Okay. She was wrong. Quinn Fabray was entirely wrong in her assumption that God had forgotten about her because this was surely the ninth level of hell: Rachel Berry giving her dinner _before_ murdering her and dumping her body in the tub. The last supper, indeed.

"I don't want to kill you." _(thank God for small miracles - though it would be the better option at this point.)_ "I don't want to... engage in sexual activity with you." _(then why are you here, Manha- ... Berry?) _"I just want to... I don't want to do anything you don't want to do. We can talk, or—"

"Shut _up._"

They watch TV in silence - rather, Quinn watches TV and Rachel watches her. Quinn doesn't acknowledge the brunette's wounded, worried look, instead focusing on the droning monotone of late-night talk shows. She'll eat the damn sandwich, to silence her stomach and maintain the uneasy truce between herself and Rachel.

But what she doesn't want is to hear a single word out of Rachel Berry, she doesn't want to see what rests in those eyes. She already knows, and it's everything Quinn Fabray can't stand: kindness.

Rachel breaks the truce when the hour is up and Quinn gathers her purse. The brunette bites her lower lip, looking up to finally lock brown eyes with Quinn's hazel ones. And then: "I'll see you tomorrow night."

_(you won't. you've had your fun with Quinn the Whore, and you won't return.)_

But Rachel does.


	5. my bones will break, my heart will give

**iv. my bones will break and my heart will give**

Rachel Berry's life is no picnic.

She has slushies thrown in her face at least once every day at school, if not more frequently. No one follows her into the bathroom to check on her, no one comforts her after the fact. She's tormented about everything from her religion to her clothes to her MySpace page to her gay fathers to her near-sacrilegious worship of Barbra Streisand to her dreams of making it big on Broadway. She can't hold down a boyfriend. The most happiness she knows in a day is during those precious few minutes of Glee club with the only people she can tenuously label as friends, and even that designation is more than generous.

She's been in love with Quinn Fabray since the ninth grade and stood silently against every taunt, every threat, every verbal and non-verbal action that rent her heart with indelicate eagle-claws, only to find her affection healed and stronger the following day: a twisted Prometheus and her oblivious bird-of-prey.

(she sits alone in her room after braving another day, and all she can think about is the red-and-white flurry of cheerleader uniforms; a flash of gold hair; the perfect white of snarling teeth. her iPod sings what her heart knows and the only thing she, Rachel Berry, cannot give voice to:

I gave you my music, made your song take wing  
and now, how you've repaid me, denied me and betrayed me...)

Rachel Berry's life is no picnic. But if her life is a sniffle after school, silent tears trickling down cheeks long after the bedroom light has gone out... then Quinn Fabray's is a despairing shriek.

Rachel knows she doesn't have to hide where she goes, what she does - _who_ she does. She doesn't have to stand by herself on a street corner long after dark, swallowing her dignity - and a stranger's ejaculate - for a couple dollars... and it's always one more dollar that she needs, just one more dollar. Rachel doesn't have to worry if the next client will be too insistent for yes and too strong for no. She doesn't have to worry about hands on her neck, on her hips, inside of her; she doesn't have to learn how to not only ignore the intrusions, the violations, but _welcome_ it. She doesn't have to spend her nights worried about disease or _(God, oh God, not another pregnancy please God let my period come let it come letitcome)._

Rachel doesn't have to feel her cheek pressed against the seat of a car or the brick of a wall or the softness of a pillow. She doesn't have to bite back the sounds, the whimpers, and frequently the screams when she has one who's too rough or she's too worn out by the end of the night. She doesn't have to worry about accidentally picking up someone that's not quite normal, not quite there - who really will end up hurting her in ways beyond repair and possibly beyond what any medical advances can do to save her life. She doesn't have to hear the hissed insults from those who pass by; she doesn't have to constantly convince herself that yes, she is still a person who has rights and sovereignty and is not just a vessel for empty fantasies. She doesn't have to wonder about those that have come before; what happens to the ones who just... vanish, because people don't simply disappear, they don't, something happens to them and with each day that passes Quinn grows more and more terrified that _something_ is getting closer and closer to her.

Rachel's quiet tears drip down onto her pillowcase night after night.

But it isn't the sob that Quinn quiets by biting into her shoulder as she kneels in the shower, too ragged to stand for any longer, it isn't that sob escalating into a muffled shriek as the pries her knees apart to let the water run down her thighs, and her muscles roar back as they're forced to her will.

It isn't Quinn lying on her stomach later on - it's the only way she knows how to lie, now - and pressing her eyes shut and whispering _(God if You ever once loved me, if You ever once cared for me, then do this for me and I don't care if it's out of mercy or out of spite..._

_please, please, please stop my heart from beating.)_


	6. oh, it hurts to live

**v. oh, it hurts to live**

I can do this, Rachel Berry thinks to herself as she wakes up at five-thirty in the morning and changes into her workout attire. I can do this, she thinks as she starts up the elliptical and warms up her voice. I can do this, she thinks, while staring at a pink piece of paper in front of her.

There are no gold stars around it; instead there are two words written in blunt black marker and retraced several times over:

QUINN FABRAY

I can save her.

It's why her grades are starting to drop, slowly but surely, as she spends more and more time researching prostitution on the internet; haggard faces with empty eyes stare at her when she tries to pay attention during class. It's why she quit Glee to work a part-time after-school job that pays seven dollars an hour, up to her elbows in soapy water while tuning out inappropriate remarks from her co-workers and manager. It's why she clocks out every night at exactly the same time, jumps into her car and breaks every single speed limit - she's figured out she averages roughly 15.6 miles above the posted notices - blows through every single yellow light and runs every single stop sign, all so she can pull into the parking spot next to Quinn's car and sprint the four blocks to the blonde's corner.

It's why this turns into a nightly ritual for the two - Quinn doesn't stop, and Rachel never backs down from a challenge. It's why Rachel starts dipping into her own personal savings because she only gets paid once a month and seven dollars an hour doesn't cover what she needs to get Quinn for one hour, a single hour out of twenty-four where Quinn stares at the TV and Rachel stares at Quinn and neither of them stare at the clock until the alarm on Quinn's cell phone - because Rachel refuses to set hers - goes off.

Rachel's grades are suffering, her sleep is suffering. Her savings are suffering - she's managed to get her fathers to start paying her for chores after a weekend full of bargaining and pleading and tears and two perfectly executed diva storm-outs, but it's not quite enough. She's pretty sure her sanity is suffering - she's started obsessing over the blonde's physical appearance during their hour alone; her eyes trail up and down Quinn's arms, searching for track marks indicative of drug use, her gaze sweeps over Quinn's eyes, her nose, her mouth, looking for any symptom of disease. She's begun slipping contraceptives into Quinn's purse while the other girl is too engrossed in numbing herself through a television show or too busy wolfing down the sandwich Rachel carefully prepares each morning _(this isn't a pride thing,_ Quinn thinks, _her feeding me... it's just— it's just extra payment is all)._And all that, everything that happens within the motel room? Doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is Rachel laying eyes on Quinn when she rounds that final corner and verifying that the only person she loves more than music, more than singing, more than herself - is still alive.

It's why she's losing Rachel Berry to save Quinn Fabray, even if just for one hour out of twenty-four.

It's why when she gets home one night, Rachel puts on her Funny Girl playlist on iTunes and promptly breaks down, not even able to make it to her bed to sob into her pillow. It's been weeks since she's sung to anything but the empty air of her bedroom. Weeks of looking at statistics about girls who prostitute themselves: how many end up using drugs, how many end up in prison, how many end up disappearing, how many end up dead.

Weeks of looking at photographs of those same girls to remind herself that Quinn isn't a number.

I can do this. I can save her.

And after weeks of slowly tearing herself apart to save a girl that's beyond shattered, Rachel comes to a realization:

I can do this. I can save her.

But I can't do it alone.


	7. now I'm forced to see

**vi. now I'm forced to see  
**

Quinn sits on the bed, absently wondering why Rachel hasn't followed her in yet. Usually the brunette is right on her heels, mouth running non-stop about school or music or some other inane subject until Quinn holds up her hand, turns on the TV and completely ignores Rachel for the rest of the night save the one moment that the brunette walks over - she always sits in a chair by the door as if afraid to violate Quinn's personal space, not realizing that sitting closer would be the least intrusive violation Quinn would deal with all night - and quietly hands her a sandwich and a bottle of water.

She'd lagged behind on the stairs and seemed more skittish than usual, but that was whatever because the door was opening and out of the corner of her eye Quinn catches dark hair and dark eyes and an equally dark expression—

Quinn shoots straight up at the exact moment Santana says "I'm pretty sure if I looked up 'hot mess' on Urban Dictionary your picture would be the only thing there."

Santana Lopez. Santana 'That's How We Do It In Lima Heights' Lopez. Is standing there. In front of her. Quinn now wishes she was one of those whores that had gotten into drugs because she'd take a syringe full of smack and drive it right into her heart and end it all—

"Sit the fuck down, Q, and stop flapping your blowjob lips at me. I'd rather pay Coach Sylvester to sleep with me than get my mack on with you."

Fury bubbles within Quinn Fabray then: (_so this is it, Rachel Berry? all those slushies, all those words I said because they were expected of me, because it became a habit, because I couldn't admit that- that- no, it doesn't even matter now. turnabout is fair play, they say. but I still have that rope and I'll be done with you and this and a God that seems determined to drag me ever lower. I'll be done before Santana can hit the 'send' button on that text that will surely go out to the whole school— )_

But Santana has flopped herself down on the bed next to where Quinn had previously been sitting and was now ranting about the new purge that Sue had them on, and how lazy and pathetic the freshmen cheerleaders were, and not that I'm saying you were ever good, Q, because fuck that noise, but damn if you couldn't show those morons a thing or two about how to get their cheer on.

And then Quinn knows.

Santana Lopez is a bitch. She's a bitch and she's selfish and manipulative and ruins relationships and has ridiculous gay panic when it comes to Brittany. She's a bitch who not only takes pleasure in ripping at Quinn but seems personally invested in it - but she's a bitch to Quinn because Quinn is _hers_ to tear apart, she's _Santana's_, and Santana fucking Lopez will join a nunnery before she sees anyone else look cross-eyed at Quinn without her explicit permission.

Quinn takes a breath, sits down beside Santana, and says: "I thought the freshmen looked sloppy when performing their round-offs."

And while Santana launches into a tirade about how Q has more air in her head than the freshmen have on their jumps and how Glee was maybe missing a little something with both her and Rachel gone - maybe that something is that nasty odor that you both give off, you unclean slut, and why don't you use that peroxide you dump on your hair to rinse your body instead - all Quinn can hear is _I won't treat you like you're vulnerable, Fabray, I won't have pity on you, and I'll keep calling it like I see it but we're cool and I've got you, and don't go around telling people I've gone soft; the only reason I'm here is 'cause B is worried and I gots to keep Britts happy, ya know? ... so, yeah. There._

After an hour Santana gets up and stretches, and something unrecognizable flickers across her eyes - maybe Quinn can't place it because she's never actually seen Santana legitimately concerned for someone other than herself and Brittany - but the look is gone before the blonde can draw another breath. The Latina drawls "Tomorrow then, Q, and doll up some. Can't have people thinking I hang with _cheap_ hookers."

Before Quinn can fully process the 'tomorrow' Santana's gone, and in her place is a neatly-folded hundred-dollar bill.

* * *

Quinn tells herself she shouldn't be too surprised that when she's done tucking the hundred away in her purse, there's a body in the doorway that belongs to one Brittany S. Pierce.

There's a crease on Brittany's forehead and Quinn can't decide if the taller blonde is confused, annoyed, upset, or a mixture of all three and gently pats the space on the bed beside her, a soft, comforting noise escaping her lips before she can help it. Ironic, that she should be the one soothing Brittany... but when the cheerleader sits, Quinn can see she has something clutched tightly in her hands. It looks suspiciously like a diary, with ducks on the front... but Brittany looks up and Quinn's mind goes blank as the taller blonde puts forth this question to her:

"Do I give you your present now or later?"

"My present?" Quinn echoes, at a total loss.

"Yeah. S and Rachel said we were going to visit you every day and when I asked why, they said it's because it was your…" Brittany's nose scrunches momentarily as she tries to remember the word. "... un-birthday! Like Alice in Wonderland! And we were going to give you presents every day. When I asked if we could invite other people they got very serious and said no, it was a secret un-birthday and S made me pinky-swear not to tell anyone else. I tried to get S to buy a cake for you after school but she said you already ate out and you were full _(Goddamn bitch_, Quinn thinks, half-maliciously and half-affectionately) and now I don't know when to give you your present."

"You can give it to me later," the smaller blonde replies gently, her hand reaching down to squeeze the fingers of the incredibly sweet, incredibly naïve girl beside her. Quinn's fingertips brush over the cover of Brittany's... diary? "Britt, why'd you bring your diary with you?"

"Oh! I wrote all about visiting you in my diary but Rachel and S said it was super-secret, so... I know Charity, my cat, reads my diary when I'm not home and I didn't want to break my promise. I brought it with me so your secret un-birthday is safe."

Quinn can't answer around the lump in her throat, but Brittany has moved off the bed and apparently she's brought her backpack with her, and she's pulling out books and binders and paper. "Rachel said I should ask you for help with my homework. She says you've been busy with your un-birthdays—" And here Quinn is afraid she sees something like understanding in Brittany's gaze and maybe Britt isn't as dumb as she comes off, but the taller blonde continues: "—and we should use our time to focus on school. Can you help me with American history? I don't understand Paul Revere... what exactly did he revere?"

Quinn spends the hour patiently explaining that Revere was his last name, and that he was famous because he rode through the night to warn the American villagers that the British were preparing to march on their towns ("That's silly, Q, how can you march _on_ a town?"), arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams ("How can you arrest a beer?") and seize the weapons stored in Concord ("Puck says he has guns and there's a weapon in his pants. He tried to seize my weapon in the hallway once but S headbutted him in the nose."). By the end of it Brittany's at least gotten through her history assignment and Quinn has actually caught up on a full day's worth of homework, done while patiently waiting for the other blonde to finish copying her notes.

It's the first time in recent memory that Quinn can recall actually doing her homework, let alone finishing all of it.

At the end of her hour Brittany wraps her arms around Quinn's shoulders, pulling her close. "Happy un-birthday!" she congratulates, with such excitement that Quinn can't help but smile. She presents Quinn with a giant pink bow, and it's only after Brittany leaves that Quinn figures out there's something actually tied beneath all that bright ribbon: another hundred-dollar bill.


	8. don't you wish you were dead like me

**vii. and she says, "Don't you wish you were dead like me?"**

"Brittany doesn't have a job."

Rachel shuts the door, locks it, draws the deadbolt and props a chair beneath the handle because, first, you can never be too careful especially in a rent-by-the-hour motel in the shadiest part of town, and second, she's taking the time to formulate an appropriate, evasive response.

"No, and neither does Santana. Santana's father, however, has a very good job... as a doctor. He is also the type of parent that tries to make up for spending more time with patients and insurance forms than his daughter by giving her outrageously - almost irresponsibly - large amounts of money. 'Summer surgeries' aren't cheap, you know."

Rachel's lips quirk in a half-smile, one that dies when it registers that there isn't a similar reaction on Quinn's face.

"You spoke to Santana."

"Well, yes. You act as if I was trying to communicate with some amoeba, which, yes - sometimes I think of Santana as such because like an amoeba she knows little else but devouring whatever is in her way and flailing her pseudopods around in a theatrical manner, but unlike an amoeba, she has ears and is perfectly capable of—"

"You spoke. To _Santana._"

"Quinn, as I said, Santana is—"

Two hands placed on either side of Rachel's head slam into the door behind her, and Rachel thinks that being boxed in by Quinn Fabray's body would be erotic under any circumstance aside from this one: the one where Quinn is practically radiating anger, fingernails scratching into the cheap wood of the door, hazel eyes dilated black with frustration. The abrupt banging sound brings back a memory of a locker door slamming shut under pressure from those same hands, that same hair flashing in the light like ripe summer wheat, that same animalistic snarl.

But this isn't school, they aren't so innocent anymore, and their current standoff makes petty boyfriend issues so insignificant they couldn't even be quantified in actual terms; they'd have to delve into the realm of imaginary numbers. Which was what they were beginning to learn in Pre-Calc, and—

"You _hate_ Santana."

"I don't hate anyone."

"What is it, then? You feel sorry for me?" Perfect pearl teeth bared in the mockery of a smile. "Sorry enough that you went and talked to _Santana Lopez_, of all people? You think I'm pathetic, don't you? Former Cheerios captain, former head of the Celibacy Club, former honor roll student... former everything. I told you before, I'm not your fucking charity case."

"I'm not helping you because I think—"

"_Helping_ me?" Rachel swears for a moment that Quinn's irises go scarlet and she wonders if all the blood vessels in her eyes have burst and she can't quite remember the textbook definition of a hematoma but begins to wonder if Quinn's murder-red eyes would qualify. The next thing Rachel feels is a terrible disappointment because she's fairly sure her time on earth is about to end and she didn't see her life flash before her - at the very least she would have liked to see certain numbers from Funny Girl but she wasn't even granted that, all she gets is an image of Quinn's face coming closer and closer and—

"No more charity," the blonde whispers, and Rachel shivers with the subconscious knowledge that what is about to happen is far worse than death. "No more pity. You're getting what you've paid for. Let me help _you._"

And then Quinn's lips meet hers before she can refuse.

No, Rachel wants to shriek. No, no, no. Not like this, not— no. But slender fingers are tangling in her hair and Quinn's eyes are sliding shut, and when she feels the blonde girl shudder Rachel forgets the definition of courage, forgets she ever knew the virtue at all.

Quinn's no longer the ice queen everyone's portrayed her as; no, now she's a salamander and not the little lizard but the salamander of myth, the fire-walker, the fire-breather. _Vomissant des flames_ - vomiting flames indeed, flames that twist and howl within Rachel's mouth as Quinn rudely shoves her tongue within; flames that race from Rachel's lips down her throat to her stomach where they erupt into an inferno she didn't know she was capable of producing. Her nerves sing out as they're scorched, stretched out on the rack and flayed with broken glass.

It's too intense, it's too much. Rachel's hands are on Quinn's shoulders, about to push her away - and then Quinn grabs one of the offending hands and shoves it between her legs.

Rachel does scream then, right into Quinn's open mouth.

The blonde arches her spine, throws her head back, and suddenly she's all curves: from the impossible angle of her back to the swell of her breasts, from the secret arc of her buttocks to the smooth ridges of her tracheal rings. Rachel tries to protest; something, _anything—_ but all she can manage are the fractured syllables of Quinn's name, and as if detached from her own body, watches with horror as those fingers between Quinn's legs curl up to meet the blonde's body.

A high, keening note issues from between Quinn's lips and all Rachel can think is _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry._ Her fingertips twitch and she allows her own eyes to flutter closed, and—

_( "—I've helped you not because it's the right thing to do, but because I had—" )_

— Quinn is staring at her from the bed, Rachel having flung her back with such force that she quite literally flew the five or so feet to land squarely on top of the mattress. Rachel is panting and for half a second considers wiping her mouth, but it would appear contemptuous and with her luck she'd use the wrong hand and get Quinn's taste on her tongue and then not even Barbra Streisand herself could pull her back from the hell she would willingly take a swan dive into.

"I just want..." Rachel stops to take a breath, still her nerves, still her heart, gather what few remnants of fortitude she has remaining. "... to talk."

Quinn sits up; tugs her skirt down. Rachel's eyes close for a second longer than a breath, and she can see their tenuous arrangement, their house of cards, crumbling because of the impossibly gentle pressure of Quinn's lips against her own.

When Rachel opens her eyes, she sees tears in Quinn's and doesn't know whether to feel ashamed or relieved.

"So..." the blonde says, her voice more brittle than her soul feels. "Talk."

Even though they are but all of five feet away, Rachel gets the distinct feeling that they could be on opposite ends of the planet and still be no further away from each other than they are now.

And somehow, despite all the slushies, all the insults, all the pornographic pictures, all the whispers in the hallway, all the nightmares (both awake and asleep) she has of Quinn Fabray's beautiful face on a missing persons poster, Quinn Fabray's battered body found behind a dumpster...

... somehow, this hurts more than anything else.


	9. even if we thought it would last

**viii. even if we thought it would last**

Her fingers ghosting over one of the pages of the tattered book on her desk, allowing her English Literature teacher's voice drift in and out of her head like the rhythm of the ocean breaking on a beach, Quinn Fabray could be forgiven for beginning to believe that her life had started to resemble... normalcy.

"All the world's a stage,  
And all the men and women merely players;  
They have their exits and their entrances;  
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

Quinn the ex-Cheerio, Quinn the previously pregnant girl, Quinn the quiet student who sat toward the back of all her classes and took careful notes or sometimes none at all but still managed perfect grades - something she couldn't accomplish while pregnant, and the only thing pristine left about her. Quinn the girl who walked silently through the halls, not deserving of fear and respect but not worth any hostility either. She played the role of the humbled ex-queen perfectly, maintaining enough of her former ice so that both rude and friendly overtures were avoided.

Rachel was still... well, Rachel. Still inexplicably positive. Still obnoxiously loud. Still steadfast - or headache-inducingly stubborn, depending on one's point of view. And after their physical near-encounter, both girls take great pains to act completely dispassionate, up to the point where their avoidance is practically exaggerated. They maintain a fragile status quo - Quinn doesn't acknowledge her existence, for better or for worse, and Rachel stops trailing her into every restroom to nag her about birth control. For all intents and purposes, they are completely unaware of each other. It's an uneasy cease-fire, but one Quinn is perfectly content with.

Santana and Brittany were**—** okay, so Brittany was still Brittany but Santana seemed a bit more cruel lately - and it wasn't to Quinn that her viciousness was directed at. No, the recipient of the extra-large slushies was one Rachel Berry, who stood there and took it just as she always had - a gasp, a snort to clear any offending ice from her nostrils, a quick trip to her locker and then a disappearing act into the restroom.

_(what kind of deal did you make, Faust? tell me it wasn't for my sake.)_

She knows it was, but she won't linger on the thought. After all, Quinn still has her pride.

On a particularly nasty day for Rachel, when Santana had followed up right after Rachel had been hit by an anonymous jock - making that approximately 3.5 slushies total in the span of nine seconds - Quinn meets Santana's eyes and her lips tighten into a thin line. The Latina's shoulders lift a fraction of an inch, and then Quinn understands: _all the men and women merely players..._

Here, Santana was head Cheerio. Here, she reigned supreme. Here, she would do anything to ensure that her monarchy was a long and fruitful one - and if that meant turning Rachel Berry into one part fool and one part whipping girl, so be it. Brittany's eyes meet Quinn's next; the taller blonde gives her a vaguely uncomfortable and troubled look... but then Santana's pinky finds Brittany's and her world shrinks and becomes utterly and irrevocably Santana. The sun itself would rage with envy at the way Brittany made Santana the center of her universe, basking in the overpowering glow of the Latina's forceful personality while she was content to play satellite.

Quinn tears her eyes away from Brittany and Santana, who are making their way down the hall, the incident already forgotten behind them. Rachel still stood in the center of the hallway while indifferent students shuffled around her.

Quinn does not know why she slows down.

Rachel snorts in disgust; wipes the back of her hand across her eyelids. She blinks the ice out of her eyes and catches the blonde's gaze**—** the edges of Quinn's mouth curve up into the shadow of a smile. It's been so long since she's genuinely smiled that Quinn is quite literally afraid she's forgotten how and hopes it doesn't come out as some contorted grimace - but Rachel beams so brightly that the slushie practically evaporates off her.

Quinn is already seated in her next classroom and has her books out by the time Rachel realizes that the blonde is gone.

Okay, so they might act oblivious to each other at school. But Quinn Fabray still has her pride, and she won't take anything for free. She pays back her debts.

This was her daytime world.

_and one man in his time plays many parts..._

Quinn the slut, Quinn the tramp, Quinn the girl who waited at the same intersection of the same two streets at the same time all night, every night, seven days a week. Quinn who stood silently while people smirked or leered or shouted insults, while little children threw rocks and empty bottles and beer cans from across the street and ran away whooping with frightened laughter; Quinn who knelt or sat or laid silently while other people possessed her body for their own ends.

Here, in this world of flickering streetlamps and gritty pavement, Rachel is... she's... a joyless laugh bubbles from Quinn's mouth before she can stop herself. She's– _(what, Fabray? your star-struck Romeo? your tragic Tristram? what sorta fairytale is this, hah! your pathetic Lancelot_**— **_ and didn't he go mad for the love of a woman that he could not have? le chevalier mal fet, the ill-made knight, wandering the wilderness_**—**_)_

And indeed, clad in a sweater with a polar bear decorating the front, jeans that are two sizes too big (she's too paranoid to wear a skirt into this area, and Rachel had reconsidered the current style of skinny jeans upon attracting some negative attention one night on her way to Quinn's corner) and her hair falling out of a hastily-made bun, Rachel is every inch the sorriest knight that Quinn had the opportunity to lay her eyes on. Rickety cars and cracked asphalt, desecrated buildings and sullen darkness: though it's dangerous, it's still Quinn's kingdom, and Rachel is her anxious little champion.

For what it's worth, Rachel plays her part perfectly: the ill-made knight tearing through a concrete wilderness that is entirely foreign and wholly unappealing, all for the sake of her distant, devastated queen.

And if their Camelot is a dirty motel room, what of it? If their reign is but an hour instead of a hundred years, who will know the difference?

In this nighttime realm even Santana and Brittany are changed. Santana is no longer concerned with perception, and thus Santana can become less than her daytime counterpart - or, perhaps, greater. The Latina is never an enemy but not quite a friend, but she's loyal - and at this point in the game, it's all Quinn can hope for. She sits by Quinn, gesturing animatedly with her hands as she rips into and raves about everyone at school. The Cheerios, the jocks, the teachers, the Glee club - no one is immune from the bite of Santana's words, and Quinn is fairly sure that some of them wake up with second-degree burns as a direct result of the vitriol dripping from that nest of vipers Santana calls a tongue.

Santana pretends not to notice when Quinn takes her lower lip between her teeth whenever the Glee club is brought up, or when Quinn bites down whenever Santana forgets and absently mentions Rachel's absence.

Quinn pretends not to notice when Santana lingers by the door, a discomfited look flickering across her face as if she's watching Quinn burn and isn't quite sure what to do about it.

Brittany, freed from Santana's presence, is... well, almost exactly like her daytime self. Even when she's gossiping or saying nasty things about others, her words never have the same bite that Santana's carries. Without her second half to drive her on, Brittany drops the insults and seems almost relieved to do so. Their hour together is spend on schoolwork: a chance for Brittany to actually retain information and an opportunity for Quinn to actually finish her assignments. They share small talk and occasionally some snacks that Quinn is quite sure Rachel packs for Brittany, knowing that Quinn will only accept so much from her - the blonde's suspicions are mainly founded on the fact that Brittany once offered her kosher bacon - but she accepts Brittany's offerings nonetheless.

What Quinn doesn't look forward to are the rare occasions that Brittany says something very candidly, and with more insight than she should have.

"Quinn?"

"Hm?"

"'Though hell should bar the way' - what's that?"

"It's a line from the poem we read today in class, Britt... here, flip to page sixty-eight. Yes, that's it: The Highwayman. 'Then look for me by moonlight / watch for me by moonlight / I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'" Quinn momentarily debates explaining the entire passage, the full meaning, the awesome weight of the Highwayman's words... but - and not to be mean - it was _Brittany_. Quinn gladly takes the easier path; the road more traveled. "The Highwayman is telling Bess that though he may not be able to come to her during the daytime he'll see her at night, no matter what."

"Oh. Like Rachel and you?"

Quinn keeps her eyes trained on the book, but it's difficult to focus when tears blur the pages. Ironic; the thing that brings her the closest to weeping isn't derisive words or strange bodies brutalizing her own, but an honest, quiet question and expectant blue eyes resting on her face.

"... I think it's time for you to go home, Britt. Santana will think I'm stealing you away and she'll go binge at BreadstiX, eat too many breadsticks and ruin her purge."

That night, in the shower, Quinn's mind is so busy repeating that one line over and over that for once, the pain in her thighs takes a backseat to the ache in her heart: _like Rachel and you? like Rachel and you? Rachel and you? Rachelandyou?_

_(the full meaning, the awesome weight of words_**— **

_but I know how this ends: she watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.)_

This was her nighttime world.

Day, night**— ** the school and the streetcorner her respective stages; Brittany, Santana and Rachel her co-stars assuming their different roles depending on the time of day. This was Quinn's world. This was Quinn's normal.

And it would have remained that way had Brittany's diary not gone missing.


	10. all your excuses for everything

**ix. all your excuses for everything**

Brittany lasts all of one period before she tells Santana that she can't find her diary anywhere.

They disappear into the boiler room and it's the first time those four walls have seen them remain entirely clothed for the duration of their stay. The two Cheerios go through everything in Brittany's backpack, three times for good measure, and then to make absolutely sure they go through everything in Santana's backpack. Santana has a forged hall pass - eleven, in fact, all with different teachers' signatures and all provided to her by one Sue Sylvester - and they take advantage of the relatively-empty halls to tear Brittany's locker apart... and then to make absolutely sure they do the same to Santana's locker.

"You're sure it's not at home?"

"No. I always bring it with me to school so that Charity—"

"It's okay, Britt." Santana heaves a sigh; she know what their next step will be, as much as it pains her:

Berry.

The three girls - "Don't walk so close, Berry, people might actually associate us with you." - rip through each of their lockers, Rachel's included. They check all the classrooms that Brittany's been in, which isn't difficult because it's only second period. They search the boiler room. The girls' locker room. The Glee club room. The gym. The stands outside on the football field. Santana's car - since she always gives Brittany rides and Brittany's car wasn't even at school; she claimed Charity has stolen her keys after her cat's unfortunate SUV accident. They even check Rachel's car, just because.

Quinn remains completely ignorant of all of the above.

At the end of the day, had she walked by the auditorium doors five minutes later instead of departing the parking lot, she would have seen Brittany, Santana and Rachel huddled close together and speaking in hushed tones. Had Quinn remained quiet and made her way to the edge of their cluster, this is what she would have heard:

"—bad feeling about this—"

"—try to get out of practice as soon as we can—"

"—so sorry, the cricket is not only stealing my jewelry but now—"

"—really, _really_ bad feeling about this—"

"—not your fault, B—"

"—leave work as early as possible—"

"—sure Tubbers will be okay—"

"—she won't, and her name is Quinn."

But Quinn is completely ignorant, utterly oblivious.

Therefore, at precisely five PM, Quinn Fabray steps out of her car, adjusts the strap of her purse a bit tighter around her shoulder, and walks directly into the mouth of a hell that would have made Lucifer tear his skin off.

* * *

David Karofsky is waiting for her.


	11. every time that you're not next to me

**x. every time that you're not next to me**

Quinn slows as soon as she spots the hulking figure leaning by the lamppost - her lamppost. The outline looks vaguely familiar and stirs within her that certain discomfort only a woman is capable of; that instinct, honed by eons of XX chromosomes that have come before the Fabray line was a single cell, which tells her to turn around and run as fast and as far as she can and by all of the angels and devils in this world and the next, Quinn Fabray, do _not_ turn around.

Unfortunately, the last time Quinn gave in to the animal in her blood she ended up pregnant. So she turns up the volume of rationalization, ignoring the way the beast within her shrieks ever-louder with each step forward that she takes. _ (whatever, Fabray, you've stood here for countless nights and nothing's happened. gonna miss out on a couple hundred easy just because you're getting frightened at the sight of some guy__—__ you see guys all the time, men more intimidating than this one, it's in your line of work. probably just some kid loitering here or a drunk celebrating five o'clock on the dot, or maybe some junkie that you'll need to nudge out of the way. weak— you've always been weak— no more! you've faced worse, far worse__—_

run

_much much worse, you've lived a life without bacon__—_

_think humor is gonna revive you when you're just another statistic on the evening news? _run!

_shut up, Fabray, shut up, you're not scared__—_

**RUN**

_and even if this is the last hour I have on this earth, what do I have left to lose__—__)_

Karofsky turns around and Quinn stands anchored to the spot as if the sidewalk beneath her heels had abruptly claimed her legs as its own.

The strange thing is that he isn't even looking at her. For all intents and purposes, he hasn't even noticed her presence. What he's doing it looking down at his open palms, lips moving silently; Karofsky appeared for all the world like some street evangelical succumbing to a fit, some mad holy man supplicating with hands before him and mouth speaking in tongues unknown to the human ear.

Finally, Quinn catches the glimmer of his eyes. He slowly raises his gaze to hers and in the time it takes him to do so, Quinn can feel civilizations rise and fall.

"Hello, Quinn."

_(run you stupid bitch run run RUN)_

But she remains rooted in place; her muscles pay no more attention to her than they do the drift of algae in the Pacific Ocean. The commands her brain screams are irrelevant - she is the young rabbit, paralyzed by the unyielding, unblinking gaze of the massive serpent before her. Too afraid to do anything but continue staring at him, the panicked screams of her mind quickly give way to one forlorn question: _(how?)_

Karofsky tips his hands forward. Quinn's eyes need only the fraction of a second to touch the manuscript cover, recognize the ducks lined up in a neat little row, and whatever scant molecules of hope she had for a tolerable resolution promptly snuff out of existence.

"I thought you'd hit rock bottom when you let Finn - or was it Puck, I can't remember - knock you up. How the mighty have fallen, and all that. But you have a talent for digging yourself deeper, Fabray, as I found out when Brittany forgot about this little prize... she was trying to get a drink from the water fountain and you know as well as I do that she can't multitask. Now what I'm really starting to wonder, Fabray—"

"No." He didn't even have to bother with the little monologue - she knew what he wanted; she knew from the moment his eyes met hers. It was something that needed no spoken language to express.

"—is exactly how low you can go."

"No."

"You're a hooker, Fabray." His voice rises with each epithet he throws her way. "A _whore_. A _slut_. I don't care if you enjoy it or not, but if you can give it up to Hudson and Puckerman for free then—"

"No."

"You're acting like you have a choice in the matter."

"There's not enough money in the world—"

"I wasn't planning on paying, _whore_." A large hand on her shoulder snaps Quinn out of her paralyzed state; her muscles tighten but then light explodes from behind her eyes as she's thrown up against the side of a building. She's going to feel every single one of her vertebrae tomorrow but right now it's all dull pain, all a muted roar as Quinn sags to one side - and is caught and held in place by the bulk of Karofsky's body.

The animal that Quinn had so carelessly dismissed, the one that had worried and nibbled at her ear before being rudely rejected – the one she'd muzzled and kenneled and kept at bay - now springs to life. Her fingernails seek flesh; they have but to move a few inches before finding it - they latch on, grip, tear. Her teeth find purchase on Karofsky's neck, sawing at the skin, seeking the blood beneath.

After all, Quinn Fabray still has her pride.

"Goddamn bitch!"

_—_ and now Quinn's on her hands and knees, shuddering from a backhand that's immobilized the entire right side of her face. The blow was so violent that she doesn't even register pain; all Quinn knows is the distinct taste of vomit at the back of her throat, and then the feeling of rude hands grabbing her, lifting, lifting, and then her bruised cheek finding the unsympathetic coarseness of brick as Karofsky shoves her face-first into the side of the building. His breath is hot and heavy with promises of pain beyond description when he finally speaks: "You made me bleed. You're going to pay that back, _slut_."

There's something beneath his voice that hints at the truth of the matter, and Quinn realizes it well: the quick, multicolored photon of panic. It's not the sex - well, it's never just the sex - but Karofsky is _scared_. He's scared and he needs to prove something and he needs her in order to accomplish that; he needs control and he needs power and he needs Quinn Fabray's body - given willingly... or not.

Thick fingers shove under her skirt and the light in Quinn's eyes flickers_—_

_(__—__ fingers on the back of her neck, circling around, and Quinn coughs into the pillow. the man behind her grunts and his hand shifts; she can feel fingertips skimming along her scalp, threading through her hair. he's not considerate but he's not aggressive either so Quinn watches the wall with listless eyes, waiting for the inevitable outcome._

_the man places his hand down on the mattress in front of her face, and she can see the gold of his wedding ring sparkling at her._

_—__ bites back a hiss, swallows a sob. she hates this, hates it__—__ out of everything she's ever done this one never gets any better. she'd even raised the price three times, hoping to drive him off, but he was insistent and he was rich and Quinn barely had enough time to check that he'd wrapped it up before he's behind her, inside her, and he doesn't even have the courtesy to let her adjust before he's thrusting violently, erratically._

_one of his hands drops between her legs in a fashion too practiced to only ever have been fantasy. a few seconds pass, that hand realizes there's nothing but empty space, and the abrupt rage in his movements, the fury with which he defiles her, makes Quinn's brain foggy with anguish._

_it's the only time she's ever gone temporarily unconscious; when bits of reality start returning to her, she can hear the last thing he utters before finishing: he moans a name - a man's name._

_—__ not supposed to be like this; women are supposed to be her respite, her relief. this is anything but - it's Quinn's face twisting in unspoken pain, it's her being crucified from the inside out. the nails are too long - they're scratching, scraping, and the single nerve cell of Quinn's brain able to distance itself from this indescribable torment wonders if the woman is trying to render her sterile or give her some sort of primitive vaginectomy. Quinn won't break her two rules - she won't cry and she won't scream - but she can twist her spine, ball her hands into fists that tear at the bedsheets as this woman tears her from within._

_she has to know. she has to know she's hurting Quinn, that this is unbearable. frantic eyes meet the steady gaze of a stranger..._

_... and Quinn knows what despair is, for she sees that the woman not only knows she's hurting Quinn - she's enjoying it._

_—__ but all of these encounters, every last single one of them, they'd at least been_

**consensual**_)_

_—_ and she stares out at the horizon. There's still cerulean at the edge of the atmosphere; the barest hint of orange where sky meets land.

Too early for her champion to come. Calls to Romeo's cell phone go directly to voice mail, texts to Tristram go unanswered, e-mails to Lancelot returned with a perfunctory away message. Too early for Rachel to_—_ too early for_—_ for_—_

Rachel_—_

_Rachel__—_  
_  
(she watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.)  
_


	12. the day you told me it's over

**xi.** **I remember the day you told me it's over  
**

And all of a sudden, Quinn feels an abrupt influx of _space._

Where the sick weight of Karofsky's hand had been, there was nothing but the evening air. Where the crushing press of his body had been, there was nothing but welcoming distance. A cool breeze skips along, kisses the backs of her shoulders; Quinn blinks slowly and wonders at how peaceful death feels.

"Leave."

It's Rachel's voice - even in death, Quinn can't mistake that distinct voice - but it seems so close, so real. And why should she leave? She didn't want to. It was nice here; quiet. Well, it had been quiet, until Rachel had come and ordered her to go. No, she wasn't going anywhere. Life had demanded too much of her and now it was Quinn's turn to be selfish, to take this moment for herself—

— but that voice isn't directed at her.

_"Leave."_

Quinn slowly turns her head a little bit more - a jarring pain in her face brusquely informs her that she's still very much alive - and she catches the back of a hideous maroon sweater. She knows that there are three penguins on the front if it's the same sweater Rachel was wearing at school today.

She also knows, though she cannot explain why, that Rachel had just answered the age-old question of what happened when an unstoppable force met an immoveable object. In this case, the object had yielded - and was now staring at the small brunette that had managed to send him stumbling a couple of feet with an all-out body slam into his side. Karofsky looks from Rachel to Quinn and then back to Rachel, and confusion turns into derision.

"How cute. One bitch protecting another. Now if—"

"That's right. I'd say something about your bitches, but it appears that you've eaten them." Rachel jabs a finger at Karofsky's gut and the jock twitches as if actually poked. Quinn twitches because she's never heard Rachel swear so casually, and because the pain is starting to make itself known - growing roots into the curve of her jaw, spreading branches into the bottom of her brain. Rachel's back is still to her, and the brunette is still speaking: "Now, I thought my monosyllabic direction would have been enough to get through your concussion-addled brain, but it seems I'm mistaken. In that case—"

"And how are two _girls_ gonna stop me?"

"You're so stupid that you can't even count right. Four. One, two, three, four. Four... si, pendejo?"

Quinn has no idea where Santana and Brittany have come from - of course, it doesn't help that half of her vision is taken up by a brick wall - but they could have manifested out of thin air and the blonde wouldn't have questioned it. The Latina is smiling so widely that her grin seems to wrap around her head twice and Quinn knows that smile means that Karofsky is an atom's width away from finding a knee, backed by a Sue Sylvester-toned set of leg muscles, propelled directly into his groin.

Karofsky's nostrils flare; his body trembles with the impotent ire of a predator denied its death-blow. Truth be told, any of the girls could put a hurting on him - Berry's trembling in a fit and Lopez is spoiling for blood. But if we were to get even more honest with himself - and he does - it's freaking _Pierce_ that has him worried.

Yes, Brittany S. Pierce. The blonde is tall, and she's shockingly strong. But there's always an aura of tranquility about her - she's the one who won't get involved, she's the one saying 'Stop the violence.'

Not now.

The same distant look is on her face, the same dreamy smile on her lips. But it's her _eyes._

There's an intensity in those slate-blue eyes that none of the other three girls nor Karofsky has ever witnessed before; there's an energy humming low, licking at the surface, and calling its potential just 'devastating' would be comparing a lit match to a supernova. There's something awful, some ancient madness reaching far back, past all cognizant human memory, past the beast Quinn had summoned momentarily - it's a beating heart held in the direction of the sun while blood runs down temple steps, it's breath quickening as the enemy writhes in the flames, his odor pleasing to both the heavens and the underworld - it's the feeling there is no word for yet; where you know you will have your enemy's liver between your teeth and you will _love_ it, you will _become_ it.

The tension heightens to a single, sharp blink as Brittany extends her arm, palm held outward.

"My diary. Thank you."

Karofsky's eyes dance from Rachel, who is all frenzy; to Santana, who is all fire; and then linger the longest on Brittany, who is something he cannot name but he knows the wrong action will result in him breathing through a tube for the remainder of his miserable life.

The jock reaches down and picks up the diary that lays by the lamppost, forgotten in his previous assault on Quinn. He shuffles forward, rigidly, and hands over the journal; his eyes sweep over the gathered girls once more and Santana's lip curls while Brittany tilts her head slightly. But Rachel...

Rachel's face is suddenly micrometers away from Karofsky's and if the hatred in her voice was any more intense the sweater with three penguins on the front might have spontaneously combusted: "You won't talk to her again. You won't look at her again. If I even so much as _smell _you around her—"

The brunette's promise is wasted. Karofsky turns while Rachel is still speaking to him; it's only Brittany and Santana grabbing her by the wrists that save the jock from a cracked skull. He starts walking - it's an aimless, meandering gait; he takes plodding, uneven steps more suited to the dead than the living. Denied his brutality, cowed by numbers, left alone to contend with the hated secret of his sexuality, he is less of a threat than the most distant stars in the sky - Karofsky walks with the unmistakable shuffle of the forsaken.

With a jolt, Rachel realizes that she recognizes the stiff, broken pace: it mirrors Quinn's exactly.

* * *

All three girls instantly remember Quinn's presence when she starts to tip backward.

Santana's immediately on her right, Brittany on her left, and they carefully turn her so that she's no longer facing the uncaring wall. The blonde is dead weight between them, her head sagging like a rag doll left out in the rain, and the cheerleaders slowly lower themselves - and Quinn - to their knees.

"Quinn! Quinn, are you—" Rachel's fingers fly to the blonde's face and then retreat just as quickly as she spots the massive bruise blooming on Quinn's right cheek. Remembering that Quinn needs her now, needs her here, is the sole thing that keeps Rachel from racing off in Karofsky's direction and unleashing a wrath worthy of the apocalypse upon him.

"I'm fine," comes a faint but steady voice; even though her chin is still resting on her breastbone and she lacks the strength to stand, something within the blonde rebels against being supported by the two cheerleaders, against needing assistance at all.

An impossibly soft hand slides carefully beneath the left side of Quinn's jaw; an impossibly gentle thumb traces the curve of her jawbone. She's forced to look up, at Rachel's eyes, into Rachel's eyes, and Quinn can't suppress the tremble that runs through her.

Rachel's voice is something Quinn's never heard before: a whisper. "Did... did he...?"

Quinn's mind struggles to compose itself and catch up. In the time it took for Karofsky to force his hand up her skirt to the time that same hand disappeared, a bolt of lightning would have made it only halfway to the ground - it was that quick. She can recall an insistent pressure on her underwear - Quinn feels the bile at the back of her throat again - but Karofsky's fingers hadn't met skin, hadn't reached her.

_(not always there when I call, but you're always on time.)_

"No," Quinn replies, and her voice is equal parts honesty and weariness. She's suddenly tired, so tired - tired of living a life where she surrenders her body for indifferent dollar bills, tired of maintaining a double identity, tired of her streetcorner, tired of being an orphan, tired of being scared, tired of hurting, tired of trying, tired of living, tired of being _tired._

With a grimace Quinn tries to shrug off Brittany and Santana's arms and stand; they glance at each other before rising as one, picking Quinn up with them. Their hands drop from her back, but Quinn's hands remain on their shoulders. They won't carry her, but they'll keep her upright - support her if she needs it.

They know Quinn Fabray has her pride, and they let her keep it. Quinn wouldn't have it any other way.

It takes Quinn a moment before she can drop her hands; she sways on her feet and Brittany and Santana look ready to grab her again - but she shakes her head and inhales deeply, finally finding her footing.

And naturally, the moment she does, Rachel Berry is as close to Quinn's face as if Quinn was Karofsky and it was five minutes prior.

"You're done with this." the brunette declares through set teeth, and Quinn stares at her blankly.

"I can't just walk away—"

"Yes you can," comes a chorus of voices, all three of her friends answering in unison. Quinn's brows furrow and she opens her mouth to argue, but Santana cuts her off:

"That's how you started, right? You just... walked into it. You can walk out."

"But—"

"Get a job, Tubbers," the Latina replies flippantly, anticipating Quinn's retort with ease. "You must have a decent amount of money saved up by now. You can take the pay cut and actually go into a legit profession. Granted, saying you went from_ this_ to flipping burgers is gonna lose you readers when you finally publish your life story, but—"

"Santana!" Ever the diva, Rachel stomps her foot, and Quinn feels herself smile.

Granted, the right side of her face is in immense pain and she's going to have a migraine when she wakes up the next day. She's going to have to fend off confused expressions and concerned questions for the next school week. The expression feels rusty, difficult; almost a pantomime of the original - but it's the first genuine smile she remembers having since... well, clearly since as far back as her memory can take her.

"On one condition." Quinn looks at Rachel, and the world around them stills. Santana and Brittany blur, their voices and colors muted in the background. Rachel - and the penguins on her sweater - stand out in stark relief; her lines are too-crisp, too-sharp, like an overexposed photograph. The smaller girl fidgets and tries to hide it.

"Yes?"

* * *

Quinn's life has been a veritable Pandora's Box. Shades and spectres and horrors and abominations of every sort have flown in her face, disappeared into her bloodstream, ravaged her brain and heart and soul. She's lived through enough pain to carry her through this lifetime and the next; she's borne her burden for so long that Atlas himself would be in awe of her.

But now that she's survived it all, now that the four horsemen have gone and ceased molesting her - now, Quinn can take a breath and assess the damage: and the first thing her eyes fall upon is one Rachel Berry.

Rachel saved her. Rachel _saved_ her. And not just from the agony Karofsky would have put her through, not just offering her respite for an hour each day for God knew how many weeks. No, Rachel Berry saved her... but in order to save any drowning person, one could not remain within the safe confines of the harbor - one had to go headlong into the tempest as well.

Rachel's suffered too; that much Quinn knows. She's smelled the grease-stink of overfried food and too much salt on Rachel's jeans. She's seen the brunette's hands, reddened, the fingernails blunt and cracked at the edges. She's seen the thunderstorms in Rachel's gaze when the brunette receives a quiz or essay back that's bleeding red ink; she's seen those dark clouds dissipate when Rachel glances over in her direction - reassuring herself, Quinn's figured out, that her suffering grades are a small price to pay for the blonde's life.

She's heard Rachel humming to herself during class. There's a desperate quality to the barely-there notes; a song struggling to find freedom from the confines of the brunette's closed mouth – and each and every time the melody is on the verge of breaking free, Quinn watches Rachel swallow down her tune with a very peculiar expression on her face: the very same tormented look someone would have if choking down bent drill bits.

_(how long has it been since she's sung in front of anyone? ... how long has it been since she's sung at all?)_

Quinn knows that out of all the things Rachel's given up, her most precious is her soul, her song - they are one and the same - and all this done to preserve the fragile flame of Quinn's life. Rachel Berry won't let another note escape her lips if it means that Quinn is Well and Good and Okay. She'll do this because she doesn't know how to do things in halves - she'll do this because she loves Quinn Fabray with every cell of her being and doesn't know how to do otherwise.

It makes Quinn mad.

It makes Quinn mad because even if she may not be able to say it, even if she may not be able to admit it or recognize it or even be fully conscious of it, she loves Rachel Berry just as fiercely.

And it makes Quinn mad because she has her pride. Quinn Fabray pays back her debts.

"I'll stop. And you have to rejoin Glee."

* * *

They're walking down the street, back to the parking lot where all four girls have left their respective rides. Brittany's to Quinn's left; Santana's to Quinn's right. They're pressed close, close enough so that she can feel the fabric of their uniforms against the bare skin of her forearms. Close as they are, they're not holding her up - and Quinn is glad for that. She's also glad that they're warm, because she's not and secretly wonders if she'll ever be again - but what makes her feel infinitely warmer is what Brittany said when asked why she got that perfectly calm, perfectly homicidal look in her eyes when confronting Karofsky.

"He was going to hurt you, Q. He was going to hurt you because of _me_. And I promised to keep it a secret, San made me pinky-swear. He was going to hurt you because of _my_ secret. It made me mad."

There's a pause, and Quinn lifts her hand to squeeze Brittany's bicep lightly.

"Madder than the time," Brittany continues with a crinkled brow, "that I learned Santana's Blackberry was not an actual fruit—"

Quinn lets the taller blonde's complaint and Santana's soothing reply settle into a comfortable rumble in the back of her head. She basks in the heat of the two cheerleaders on either side of her body; she knows their pinkies are linked behind her back.

Rachel is in front - of course - and leading the way, currently rambling about crime rates and government-run programs and the sociopolitical factors that contribute to poverty. She glances behind her shoulder every so often to make sure the little group is still following - surely the brunette has to know they're definitely not_ listening _- and every so often, she'll meet Quinn's eyes.

She smiles when she does so, and Quinn can't help but smile back.

Somewhere along the walk, one of Rachel's hands slips behind her back. She keeps it there while her other hand swings normally at her side, and it takes a moment for Quinn to realize what Rachel's offering.

Quinn takes a breath, holds it, and doesn't realize she's holding it. She doesn't realize Brittany and Santana have stopped talking, either.

And slowly - _slowly_ - Quinn reaches forward those final few inches and laces her fingers through Rachel's.

"Final-fucking-ly."

"Santana!"

* * *

The very first part of the story was a lie.

* * *

The very first part of the story was a lie.

Quinn Fabray **doesn't** only have two things she can call her own. She has _three._

One of them is a burns-so-hot-it's-radioactive desire to get out of Lima, Ohio. The second is her pride.

And then, right next to hope— the thing with feathers she thought had abandoned her long ago— Quinn will gently place her third and most powerful possession:

The insanely difficult, violently generous heart of one Rachel Berry.

_(I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.)_


	13. it just won't stop it just won't go away

**xii. epilogue: it just won't stop, it just won't go away**

Saying you're going to help someone find home is one thing.

Actually finding your way there is quite another.

* * *

Rachel wonders what the hell is wrong with Quinn Fa— okay, so she doesn't have to wonder; she's made an hour-long Powerpoint presentation to educate herself on post-traumatic stress disorder and she'd even tried to show it to Quinn, along with several pamphlets on different types of therapy and various licensed mental health professionals that could assist her.

Five minutes into Rachel's presentation, the kindest word to come out of Quinn's mouth was "garbage." The only clinic she let Rachel take her to was one where she could get checked for various STDs, and Rachel nearly had to drag Quinn out of the car the second time she took the blonde to get tested, "just in case they didn't catch something or made a mistake - clinics aren't infallible, you know."

Rachel knows Quinn appreciates what she does. She also knows that dealing with the blonde on a day-to-day basis is like trying to predict the weather a hundred years from now, or attempting to guess the exact moment a sinkhole would open up beneath her feet and send her straight into the belly of the earth.

Some days Quinn would be more than receptive to Rachel's tentative words of devotion, despite being utterly passive about the whole affair. Not an hour later the blonde would be storming past her in the hallway, totally ignoring her presence, eyes fixed on a distant target as if physically riveted there. Some days Rachel would be able to sit close enough to Quinn that their knees would touch - actually touch! - and Quinn would allow Rachel that contact; let the brunette sit there trembling with pleasure because two square inches of flesh had met one another. Other days a distinctly nauseous, misty-eyed look would come across Quinn's face as soon as Rachel began thinking about cooing soft affections into her ear, and it takes every mote of willpower Rachel has to not look disappointed as she retreats.

Some days, Mercedes tells her that Quinn's skipped dinner – again - and breakfast - again - and now it's Rachel's turn to hold back tears: as she sits in the auditorium with Quinn, ensuring every bite of food disappears down the blonde's throat; as she follows Quinn into the girls' restroom afterward, making sure it doesn't come back up.

Rachel knows people call her difficult, and she'd be the first to admit that sometimes she matches the description perfectly. She would also like those same people to spend half an hour in a room with one Quinn Fabray and then reassess their criteria.

"Can you tell Q to go over to your house this weekend?" Santana gripes, so affected by Quinn's moods that she's actually desperate enough to speak to Rachel in the hallway, in full view of the whole school. "She swings worse than I do when I'm PMSing, I swear. Don't mention musicals or Streisand or anything like that; she'll go catatonic and we'll have to start back from the beginning—" Here Santana ignores Rachel's offended look— "— just keep it dull and totally non-threatening, like you wanna work on school. I'm sure you can calm her down, or something."

"Or something," the brunette mutters beneath her breath as soon as Santana turns away. During their Literature class together, Rachel writes out a rambling note that takes up an entire sheet of paper - and the college-ruled kind, too - and asks Quinn to spend Friday night at the Berry residence in order to catch up on physics homework.

She's quite surprised when she receives the one-word reply: "Okay."

Sneaking a glance over at Quinn, Rachel notes that the blonde almost seems pleased about it. Upon further consideration, Rachel decides that she's quite pleased as well.

Physics homework. If it's the best way to get Quinn closer to her, Rachel will take it and she'll bless Newton all the way to her grave.

After all, like nature, Rachel Berry's heart abhors a vacuum.

* * *

"—Newton's first law."

Forget blessing him - curse Issac Newton, and a second curse upon his laws. Upon realizing that Rachel Berry did not have Newton's laws of motion memorized, Quinn refused to entertain even the notion of taking a break and popping Funny Girl into the DVD player - she wouldn't even hear talk of them watching but a single musical number. She's instead been drilling the laws into Rachel's head for the better part of thirty minutes and Rachel silently adds another curse to her steadily-growing pile, this time directed at Santana. Dull and non-threatening, indeed.

"An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Now can we—"

"Second law?"

"F equals m times a. Quinn, I want to—"

Quinn narrows her eyes at Rachel's subtle rebelliousness, but lets that one slide. "Third?"

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

"Good." The blonde nods with satisfaction and Rachel is already halfway across her bedroom, scrambling for the Funny Girl DVD, but Quinn cuts her short: "Now, give me some examples."

"Quinn Fabray! It is eight o'clock on a Friday night. We are two teenage girls. We are not doing physics homework, we are going to watch a movie and eat unhealthy food choices that we will ultimately end up regretting in the morning and engage in slanderous talk against the student body of William Mc—"

"You asked me to come help you with physics," Quinn points out. Rachel wants to point out that she actually scored higher on their last quiz, but doing so would mean Quinn not once lifting her head from the physics textbook currently in her lap for the remainder of the night, and Rachel doesn't need her closing in on herself. So instead she grumbles, but then... then... one of Newton's apples thunks her solidly on the head.

Quinn wanted physics. Rachel wanted fun. There was a way to make everyone happy…

"Newton's first law..."

"Yes?" Quinn raises a delicately shaped eyebrow at her and Rachel has to remind herself how to breathe.

"Okay, you'll be the object at rest, and I'll be the unbalanced force. Catch!"

"What—?"

By the time Quinn has sputtered the question Rachel is already airborne, having ran a few steps and launched off. Years of the elliptical have toned her calves quite nicely, granting her a shockingly long leap, and the brunette barrels head-first into her blonde counterpart, sending them both sprawling across Rachel's bed. Before Quinn can react, before she can yell or swear or even blink, Rachel's on top of her, giggling insanely as her fingers tickle at Quinn's neck, her underarms, her sides.

"Rachel!"

The brunette pays no heed to Quinn's gasp, too focused on exacting her vengeance for a devastatingly boring Friday night.

"Rachel!"

It's nice, being so close to Quinn like this. Very nice. Rachel loves Quinn and Quinn knows it, but Rachel's had to be patient - so perfectly patient, so perfectly polite, reining back her affections and only caressing Quinn with careful compliments, whispered words. But now it's heat, and movement, and Rachel's eyes are bright with desire—

"Rachel, _please—"_

And with a jolt, Rachel realizes that Quinn is crying.

* * *

Rachel's too disgusted with herself to look away.

Quinn's sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs tucked up, arms around herself, head buried in her knees. She's a proud girl and she won't let Rachel see her cry, but she won't do much else to hide any other signs that she's weeping softly into her pajama pants. Now and then Rachel can see the sharp lines of Quinn's shoulders tremble; now and then Rachel can hear a great shuddering breath when Quinn needs air.

Why didn't she think of the consequences of her actions? Why didn't she consider the abrupt weight of her body pressing down on Quinn, the roving hands, the maniacal laughter?  
_  
(are you proud of yourself, Berry? look at what's happened, and all because you wanted a little fun... you're pathetic.)_

"I'm sorry," Rachel says for the thirty-seventh time, mumbling her apology into the space between them. But instead of following it with more silence, she tries another tactic: honesty. "I... I thought it would be funny. I didn't... I didn't take your situation, your needs, into consideration. I was just trying to make you laugh." Rachel feels her own shoulders slump; she finally rips her eyes away from Quinn - ending her self-imposed penance - and stares down at the carpet between her toes. "I love you, and I've never even... I don't even know what it's like to hug you." She lets a short, bitter laugh escape before continuing, still addressing the carpet. "The closest we've ever been is that one time in the motel—"

Rachel cuts herself off and quietly contemplates cutting her tongue off while she's at it, but when she finds the courage to raise her head she finds Quinn staring at her. The blonde's eyes are tinged a soft red color, but when she speaks there's no quiver to her voice.

"You want to love me." It isn't a question.

"Of course," Rachel responds with a blink. Hell, that isn't even the right answer - she doesn't want to love Quinn, she _does_ love Quinn; what she wants is Quinn to love her back, to acknowledge her in some way. Rachel's long since confessed her feelings - why bring it up now?

A shadow passes over Quinn's eyes before she slowly extends her legs and stands. She nods once, stiffly. "Okay."

Rachel is starting to worry her lower lip the same way worry is nipping at the bottom of her intestines, but abruptly there's a shirt on the floor and Rachel watches in mute horror as Quinn mechanically removes the rest of her clothes and then lies belly-down on Rachel's bed, burying her face into a pillow.

* * *

Rachel counts five long seconds where she can't feel her heartbeat.

And then it's Rachel babbling _no, no, God no, I didn't mean it like that, Quinn, please, I'm sorry, please, Quinn, I didn't mean it like that, no, I'd never_—

Quinn doesn't respond and for one awful moment Rachel wonders how she's going to explain to her fathers that there is one very naked and very dead Quinn Fabray in her bed.

But the blonde stirs and sits up, her back to Rachel's frightened gaze. She tilts her head to the side and Rachel catches the shadow of her cheekbone; for a moment she thinks she can see the outline of a bruise against her face.

"Of course not," Quinn says, breaking the silence in a voice so dull Rachel's driven to new heights of anxiety. "You're a virgin, why would you want someone else's used toy?"

Moving before her brain realizes she is, Rachel finds herself kneeling behind Quinn. Her arms wrap tightly around the blonde's shoulders and she pulls the other girl into the curve of her body. Rachel opens her mouth - realizes that anything and everything she's said so far has only made it worse - and deigns instead to nuzzle the bridge of her nose against the crest of Quinn's right shoulderblade.

_(how do I make this better? how do I make _you_ better?)_

"You can't," comes the bitter reply, and then Rachel belatedly realizes that she'd spoken the thought aloud. Quinn tenses and makes as if to pull away but Rachel only tightens her grip, shaking her head back and forth in a negative. The blonde emits a short, sharp sound that's more reminiscent of a bark than anything else; it takes Rachel a few moments to identify it as the perversion of a laugh. "I don't remember what it's like to sleep on my back, Rachel. Do you want to know why? None of them wanted to see my face when they fucked me. They didn't like being reminded that I was an actual person; a real, living _girl _beneath them."

"I'm sorry," Rachel whimpers again, voice sounding entirely too small to belong to her.

Quinn's tone softens; helpless resentment morphs into quiet regret. "It's not your fault."

Rachel's always been honest; she's even been accused of being tactless, but _this_ surprises her: "It's not your fault, either."

Quinn shakes in her grasp and Rachel isn't sure if she's laughing or sobbing.

"Don't," the blonde says faintly after hushed minutes have passed, time only punctuated by Rachel's soft breaths and Quinn's ragged exhales. "I'm broken, Rachel, I'm—"

"No, you're— no— okay, fine. Yes. You're broken. Maybe. But even if you are, you're not irreparable. Let me show you... if you want." Though she can't meet Quinn's eyes due to being behind the other girl, Rachel hopes the sincerity in her voice carries through. "And only if you want."

Quinn's voice is so soft that even though she's less than three inches away from the other girl, Rachel has to learn forward to hear her: "And if I—"

"I'll stop. You control this. You do." _(not your parents, not any of your clients, not fucking Karofsky, not... not me.)_

The blonde girl nods again; this time it's less robotic but there remains a tension that betrays her apprehension. Quinn half-turns and there's a question in Rachel's eyes and on her tongue, but before she can speak it Quinn's fingers are picking apart the knot of Rachel's pajama pants ties.

Rachel quickly covers Quinn's hand with her own, stilling the movement. Quinn startles, stares up at Rachel anxiously: "You said that I—"

"Yes. You control this. But I don't want..." Rachel sinks her teeth into her lower lip and hopes what she says won't sound arrogant or inconsiderate - or even worse, insincere. "... I don't want you to worry about me. Tonight is for you, okay? Just... let me. Let me take care of you."

Quinn kisses Rachel for the first time since that night at the motel.

* * *

It's taken Rachel ten minutes to gently coax Quinn onto her back, and even now the blonde looks like she's going to start hyperventilating at any minute. The moment Quinn rolled over her arms had flown up, reflexively, to cover her breasts. Her knees are drawn up, thighs pressed together - though completely naked, she's utterly inaccessible.

"I don't know if I'm ready to be a real person yet," Quinn whispers into the air between them, not meeting Rachel's eyes; Rachel settles beside Quinn and while kissing behind her ear, whispers back that she always has been.

No uncomfortable, unwanted weight on top of Quinn, no pressure to perform, no need to rush. Rachel eases into it, trailing lazy kisses up and down and up and down the side of Quinn's neck. In time, she raises a hand and runs a fingertip along Quinn's forearm with all the delicate passion of a brush on blank canvas. She lets the heat of their bodies grow; she lets the proximity between them work its own charms against Quinn's diamond-hard defenses, knowing their closeness is doing infinitely more than any fumbling words could.

Quinn's straitjacket grip around herself slackens. Her muscles tire, loosen. And in a moment that feels like she's watching Quinn be born, Rachel watches as the blonde's hands finally fall away from her body and come to rest at her sides.

Quinn's palms are sweating profusely.

The brunette slowly raises herself up on one elbow, staring down at Quinn's body in astonishment. She didn't have the opportunity to get a good look while Quinn had undressed, too busy being struck blind and dumb with alarm. But now Rachel can see Quinn, really _see_ her, and she's— she's—

Though Quinn's wounded, though she's scarred - and terribly - it's all on the inside. She'd never been the unfortunate victim of armed robbery; she'd never taken to drugs and suffered the after-effects thereof. It's all pale skin, unblemished, unbroken by any ridges or valleys of unwanted scars; it's soft flesh, rising and falling and moving and _alive_ like the eternal uncompromising rhythm of the oceans. Her hair frames her face in a golden corona, brighter than any award that could ever pass into Rachel's hands.

Quinn Fabray. She's- she's that darkness when Rachel closes her eyes just before she launches into her first Broadway solo; she's Rachel's voice, Rachel's emotions so powerful that the critic from the New York Times has forgotten her pen; she's the scent of innumerable roses littering the stage; she's the roar of the crowd after the curtain drops for the final encore.

There's beauty, and then there's _beauty_, and then there's Quinn Fabray.

"All that I have ever loved," Rachel breathes, and rests a palm on Quinn's belly; Quinn arches, _aches_ underneath her.

Rachel lowers her head and nuzzles against Quinn's body. She's bold enough to think of kisses - and more; her body's foaming for things far more explicit that mere kisses - but she's not sure if Quinn feels the same and she doesn't want to push the blonde. She settles instead for eskimo kisses, rubbing the tip and bridge of her nose along the geography of Quinn's body; she charts the hollow of the blonde's sternum and the swell of her breasts with closed, chaste lips. Rachel can feel the insistent pattern of goosebumps against her mouth when she exhales a bit too close to one of Quinn's nipples, and the blonde's back arcs once more.

Spurred on by the movement, Rachel's tongue slides hot and wet along bare flesh - she's been holding back for what feels like forever, saliva gathering in an uncomfortable pool just behind her molars. Quinn makes a noise but Rachel's too incensed to analyze it; she's more focused on her tongue against that nipple, and now teeth scrape against the sensitive area—

_(ow.)_

Quinn's fingers are buried in Rachel's hair; Quinn's fingernails are anchoring into her scalp. But it's not with the heat of passion - it's with the barely-concealed fear of losing control. Rachel realizes - with not a small amount of frustration - that she's gone too far too fast, and all in the span of five seconds.

Rachel closes her eyes; begins her breathing exercises. Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold. Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold. Easy. Take it easy. She knows lust, possessiveness and exasperation are beginning to take root; she does her best to calm the three-headed dog that could, with a careless slip of its claws or fangs, undo everything she's managed to build. Inhale, hold. _(you control this.) _Exhale, hold._ (I don't want you to worry about me.) _Inhale, hold. _(tonight is about you, okay?)_

_(... about you, okay?)_

_(let me take care of you.)_

The brunette closes her mouth, seals her lips over her tongue and teeth. She resumes her closed-mouth kisses, now penitent in nature, and risks a glance up at Quinn's face - the blonde's staring up at the ceiling, her breathing slightly erratic, but she's loosed the vice-grip on Rachel's head and proceeds to smooth the brunette's hair down with the pads of her fingers in an apology of her own.

"Rachel—"

The brunette shoots upright so quickly she nearly tumbles off the bed. Her eyes frantically search Quinn's upper torso for any mark she's left behind, any sign that she's injured Quinn—

"Did I hurt—"

"No. No, you're... I'm fine." Quinn reaches up with one hand and slips it around Rachel's neck when the brunette leans in; Rachel allows herself to be drawn down to Quinn's mouth and when Quinn kisses her once, twice, it feels like various organs in her body have started to randomly levitate and crash against one another.

"I like kissing you," Rachel says after Quinn releases her from a third kiss. Her brain's so deprived of blood and oxygen that the usual multi-paragraph run-on Rachel Berry sentences have been reduced to fragments, but there's a quick breath, and she recoups some of that lost stamina. "In fact, I daresay I enjoy it more than this one recurring dream I have where I'm starring in a Broadway revival of Funny Girl and—"

"Rachel," Quinn interrupts, and her voice is so soft, so delicate, that it actually startles Rachel into stillness. "I like it too."

Quicker than it takes to fall in love, desire pours courage – no, _brashness_ - into Rachel's veins and her voice. "If you like my kisses," comes the response, purred from the back of Rachel's throat, "maybe I could _kiss _you elsewh—"

Quicker than it takes to fall out of love, humiliation renders Rachel mute.

Quinn stares at Rachel, through Rachel. Her head falls back onto the pillow and she returns her eyes to the ceiling. Rachel's slowly pulling back, intending to go pick Quinn's clothes up off the floor, return them to the blonde and slink back to her physics book - and then she notices movement.

Quinn's drawn one knee up and stretched her other leg out. Her thighs are slightly parted and Rachel can see that there's a slight hitch to her breathing again.

However, there's no tremble in Quinn's fingers when she claims the back of Rachel's neck once more, and gently encourages the brunette south.

* * *

Rachel's wondering when she's going to wake up.

She has to be asleep. She has to. There's no other explanation for this: lying between Quinn Fabray's thighs, nestled closer to the blonde than Quinn's own sweat. This can't be true. This can't be real. She's currently unconscious on some extraterrestrial spaceship or secret government laboratory, and there's no other possible explanation.

Except that when Rachel presses her first open-mouthed kiss to Quinn's skin, right at the junction where Quinn's leg meets her torso, it tastes too good to be anything other than real.

Quinn hears Rachel murmur something when the brunette's lips touch flesh; it could have been a sigh, but it's either a curse or the word 'God.' She's about to sneeringly reply that that God doesn't exist, or if He does He's just like any other neglectful father, abandoning His daughter when she needed Him most - but the scorn withers and dies when her body registers how Rachel's touching her: there's more awe, more reverence in that single kiss than all the prayers she'd ever offered up before a cold and empty altar.

And while Quinn desperately wills herself not to break at the affection in Rachel's caress, Rachel desperately wills herself not to panic and end up in an unconscious heap between Quinn's legs.

Rachel Berry is never unprepared. She'd figured - well, more like hoped so badly she'd almost experienced a religious ecstasy one night from whipping herself up with want - that she and Quinn would engage in this kind of behavior eventually, and she then took the appropriate steps to prepare and educate herself for such an encounter.

Tests to ensure Quinn was disease-free - and a discreet visual check at the present time appeared to confirm this. Books - ten total, and nearly arranged in two stacks of five underneath her bed - to educate herself on anatomy and proper technique. Diagrams photocopied from said books - and _that_ had been quite an adventure at school - and enlarged so she could study them in greater detail. Her first and to date only time actively searching out pornography on the internet, and watching the resulting videos through the fingers that were plastered to her face even before many of them had even loaded.

Once, she even managed to make it through more than twenty seconds in.

Rachel Berry is never unprepared... until she is.

Life can't be boiled down and compartmentalized into neat little diagrams and detached, clinical words. Here, nestled between Quinn's legs, Rachel's finding that out the hard way: there's color and texture. Breadth and depth. Sound and smell. All those carefully prepared diagrams, all those exhaustive step-by-step checklists are disappearing like footprints in a snowstorm.

_(it's... it's not supposed to be like this! all of those Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts and 'The Joys of Lesbian Sex' guides and college-level anatomy books I read in preparation for this exact moment_—_ I'm supposed to _know_ what to do! I read, I studied, I memorized, I watched those repulsive videos and had to remove at least sixteen different types of malware from my computer! this is supposed to be perfect, it's supposed to be right... what happens now? what do I do? why aren't I doing it? what—)_

"Rachel? Are you okay?"

"Yes!" The response, practically shrieked, is accompanied by a smile so enormous it would have put a shark to shame. "I'm fine! Perfect! Outstanding! I—"

"Rachel, you're beginning to sound like Coach Sylvester, and that's not doing much for my libido."

"Yes, I— I apologize. I'm merely... going through my pre-engaging-in-sexual-congress rituals!"

There's a loaded silence and Rachel can practically hear Quinn mentally telling herself to not ask.

Thoroughly flustered, Rachel returns her attention to the business at hand: Quinn. Stalling for time, the brunette slips a hand underneath the other girl's back and she can feel the base of the blonde's spine knot with tension. Uncertainly - and trying to cover up the fact that she's uncertain - Rachel resumes peppering Quinn's inner thighs with soft kisses, because that's all she remembers from her research. Glancing up to gauge how Quinn is feeling, what catches Rachel's eye instead is the lick of honey-gold hair between Quinn's legs.

Seized with the random playfulness that comes moments before having a panic-induced seizure, Rachel arches her neck to press the tip of her nose against it - and her lower lip brushes against _something_.

That _something_ wrings a stifled gasp from between Quinn's lips and makes her hips jerk upward for a heartbeat before falling back down to the mattress.

_(oh! so that's... that.)_

Rachel's tongue is already sweeping that area before Quinn's body hits the bed.

They're broad, searching, impatient strokes at first - the vexed wolf covering wide swathes of area in order to find the lone deer. But with each nervous movement that Quinn makes, each involuntarily twitch of her muscles, Rachel's tongue becomes more and more precise. Soon that broad crescendo is narrowed to a single high, piercing melody and Quinn's breathing is starting to mirror the movement of her hips— trembling staccato notes, punctuated with the occasional fermata when Quinn forgets how to exhale.

Rachel takes no time to congratulate herself; she's already focused on the next movement. She briefly remembers that to keep the same motion with the same rhythm is usually pleasurable, but variety is the spice of life... so the tip of her tongue begins to move in little circles, and then there's something rising beneath her tongue, a swelling of tissue, and _(what is that? that wasn't there before, I don't remember feeling_—_)_

She smells Quinn flood wet immediately afterward.

_(oh! so that's... __**that.**__)_

Rachel feels her mouth water in response, flooding a different sort of wet. Quinn is... okay, it's not exactly the nectar of life or whatever else ridiculous description she'd read about in those romance novels, but it's nice. A taste she doesn't mind, and could certainly get used to. Just like she could get used to the way Quinn's movements are beginning to hint at urgency; Quinn's nails on the back of her neck are giving her an arousing - and mildly painful - incentive to continue.

And now that Rachel's fear is subsiding, Quinn's is expanding.

She's never felt _that_, she's never expected _this_. Granted, she never expected to have Rachel Berry performing oral sex on her either— but that aside, her body's response is entirely foreign and Quinn isn't sure if she's prepared. Her first time with Puck, there had been pain at first... and then the entire thing was a lasting ache, an uncomfortable friction. When she'd started to sell... Quinn closes her eyes, chokes back the memories, and forces herself to think— when she'd started to sell her body, she'd been so detached from the experiences that she can't even associate the slightest amount of pleasure with them - not that her clients had been all that concerned with her satisfaction to begin with.

But this, this is... this is her body, her heart, letting up and... and doing the one thing Quinn fears more than being exposed as a prostitute, more than being shamed as a failure: this is her losing control.

And loving it.

Quinn's lungs leap for air; Quinn's nerves kick out in rapture. One of her hands grips the pillow and curls into a fist as she feels her body respond enthusiastically to Rachel's ministrations by rewarding the brunette with a deluge— Quinn doesn't know if she should feel aroused or ashamed; she settles on a sort of removed surprise since she's only ever experienced this by herself - frantic nights of twisting her legs around each other as puberty discovered her and she discovered denial. She'd never experienced this sort of reaction by another person's actions, and certainly not from herself.

The blonde screws her eyes shut and tries to restrain the odd weighty heat pooling in her intestines. It's a curious sensation, like... almost like the pressure that gathers when she needs to go pee, but entirely different. Whatever it is, it's like wrestling an octopus composed of glue - the more the tries to grab at it, the more it takes a hold of her. Quinn tries to force herself to relax, loosen up— but to her surprise it only heightens the sensations that are now overriding her nervous system - the growing, insistent throbbing between her legs demanding her attention to the exclusion of all else. And how can she not listen, how can she not allow herself to slip under?

Quinn feels Rachel's lips wrap around her clit and she loses all higher thought processes.

She can feel Rachel's lips fumbling against her body; once, twice - Quinn has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out - and the third time Rachel gets a hold of her. The brunette's mouth is incredibly gentle, lips folded carefully over her teeth to prevent any accidents; at first she seems at a loss, simply holding Quinn like that - until Quinn's hips shove pleadingly. The moment she does so an unbidden, unbroken string of _(slut slut slut slut _lesbian_ slut) _chants through her brain—

— and then Rachel begins to suck.

Quinn's mouth opens but nothing comes out; she's trained herself so well, _too_ well. The heat flares outward and upward, sinking tiny hooks into her skin and beginning to crawl from her groin to her stomach. Rachel's tongue is moving against Quinn's clit now - while she still has Quinn held between her lips - and the blonde nearly panics when she realizes that her own body isn't hers to control anymore: she can't stop the way she's trembling, twitching like a marionette on strings to every movement Rachel's mouth makes. She can't stop the way she's sucking down air with short, shallow breaths and then gulping for whole lungfuls when it's not enough. She can't stop the way her eyes roll back as her hips roll forward, and she can't stop the way Rachel removes her lips_ (what—?) _but then the tip of her tongue is on Quinn,_ inside _Quinn—

_(God Jesus fuck_—

_what's going on I don't know what's my body doing why does it feel like this Rachel_

—_ don't stop)_

Rachel's tongue yields to Quinn's body instead of the other way around, and Quinn's existence is reduced to one giant pulse, radiating outward from between her legs. She manages to get a leg over one of Rachel's shoulders as she grinds into that impossible softness, still silent but for labored pants coming from between clenched teeth. Rachel allows Quinn to strain against her for a few moments before pulling back with a little snort _(no don't—)_ but then her tongue is back to playing with Quinn's clit, but it's not what Quinn wants, what she _needs_. There's a desperation to the way she uses Rachel's body as leverage and arches her hips up, trying to get Rachel back down to where she needs her.

"Inside," she hisses, and can feel Rachel's wide brown eyes on her face. Rachel moves and makes as if to speak but the hand in the brunette's hair tightens, veins standing out in stark relief against pale skin. Quinn repeats herself with more force.

Rachel swallows; her face disappears. And then Quinn feels pressure; pushing, pushing—

She tries to say _Wait_ but can't remember how, and when the full length of Rachel's tongue is inside of her every sound Quinn's refused to make while other people have fucked her erupts from between her lips.

Fifteen seconds later, Quinn realizes that she had an orgasm and still is.

Thirty seconds later, Quinn realizes that this is her first time having an orgasm.

Forty-one seconds later, Quinn finally releases her death-grip on Rachel's hair and the brunette pops up like a carnival game, gasping for air.

Forty-five seconds later, Quinn realizes she's gasping for air too.

Fifty seconds later, Quinn realizes that there's moisture on her cheeks and she can't tell if it's sweat or tears.

Sixty-two seconds later, Quinn realizes that Rachel's frantically asking her if she hurts, if Rachel had hurt her, if Rachel had done anything wrong, does she need Rachel to run down the hallway and get the first-aid kit from the bathroom and it also came with a little pamphlet with pictures should they need to identify any obvious injury, and she could pull up Google in a second to—

"What I need, Rachel Berry, is for you to kiss me."

* * *

Across the room from the two girls lying wound together in bed, there is an open physics textbook, completely forgotten about.

It is open to a page that has one of those random laws in a light blue box, and this is what it says: the second part to Edwin Hubble's Law states that galaxies recede from the Earth at a velocity proportional to their distance from Earth.

Succinctly, the universe is expanding in all directions.

Assuming that law is true, then no matter how fast one goes, one must always travel a little further to get back to their starting point than the distance it took when they initially left.

One must always travel that much more to get home.

* * *

But looking back at those two girls in bed - one completely naked and listening with gentle amusement to the other, fully clothed, explain with perfect seriousness why _she_ should be the 'Big Spoon' - perhaps it isn't about the destination. Perhaps that stupid saying was right; it _is_ about the journey.

And the journey is going to be difficult. Quinn's not healed, not whole, and she may never truly be again. She still has a plethora of fears and insecurities to deal with; she's still bleeding from open wounds despite the fact that they're not physical ones. She still feels the need to lash out at other students, her teachers, Brittany, Santana, and even Rachel - especially Rachel. She doesn't know why she does so and sometimes she regrets it after she does it, sometimes while she's doing it... and sometimes not at all. She still finds it difficult to trust.

She finds it more difficult to not slip into a terror-induced paralysis whenever she sees Karofsky in the hallways. Rachel is always there within seconds - the brunette seems to _know_ - and Karofsky vanishes quicker than a shadow when the blinds are thrown open to the wrathful sun.

Despite all of that, despite her glacial healing process, despite her seemingly manic-depressive mood swings... it all belongs to Quinn. It's her own personal pain, no one else's. They're her scars that loop and twist around her memories and her psyche; they're what color her an individual. It's hers. _Hers._ It's Quinn's path to travel... Quinn's journey to take.

And with Rachel Berry at her side, perhaps Quinn Fabray won't mind so much that the journey home will take a little longer than normal.

Because, after all... isn't she already there?

Isn't home where the heart is?


End file.
